


What is and What Could Have Been

by Myrasel



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Bittersweet, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Light Angst, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 15:55:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17901095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myrasel/pseuds/Myrasel
Summary: Carolina wakes up in the small hours after dreaming about a life and family with York. She deals with the feelings of regret and reflects on the choices she made and a life she'll never have.Set some time after Epsilon shows her York’s recording.





	What is and What Could Have Been

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since I've watched Red vs. Blue so I apologise for any inconsistencies or if Carolina seems a bit out of character.This is also my first fic so it will probably seem awkward in some places and not be very polished. Please feel free to give me feedback but be gentle with the constructive criticism lol.
> 
> And if anyone is interested in having something to listen to while reading this I'd recommend Homecoming from the Horizon Zero Dawn OST. I feel like the sad yet hopeful tone of the song fits pretty nicely with this.

Carolina didn’t allow herself to wallow in the past anymore; to think of what could’ve been had she made different choices in life. She had let her obsession with the past control her actions for too long.

But tonight, she found herself unable or maybe unwilling, to stop thinking of the life she might have had, the friends she could have saved…the family she never even knew she had wanted.

Tonight, she’d let herself dwell on ‘what if’s’ one last time, before she would have to move on with her life in the morning.

 

That night she had awoken from a dream.

It was a sweet dream. The kind that fills you up with a quiet happiness. Yet it hurt her just as much as it gave her joy.

She’s had plenty of nightmares over the years. It was just part of being a soldier. But somehow this sweet dream had hurt her more than any nightmare she’d had in a long time. It was made all the more painful by the knowledge that she had ruined any chances of it coming true herself, with her stubborn bullheadedness and her need to prove herself to a man that was too busy chasing after a ghost to ever see her as anything more than a tool, a soldier. She felt self-loathing as she remembered her blind loyalty to the Freelancer Project and to the man she once called her father.

 

Even with the sense of longing the dream brought her, she couldn’t help but find herself trying to remember each little detail of a life with York.

How he sat there so enraptured by the old movie they were watching before choking on his popcorn when she suddenly blurted out “ _Let’s get married_ ”.

The idiotic way he swore he just had dust in his eye (because God forbid he was actually crying over the new life they had brought into the world).

The gentle look on his face when he held their child. Like it was the most precious thing in the world.

The way he stood there, leaning against the door frame, with that stupid smirk when he caught her cooing while playing peek-a-boo with their daughter.

 

For a second she pretends that he hadn’t died, that she had realized just how much he meant to her before it was too late, that she had chosen to believe him, and they had spent their life together.

 

It was a simple dream, no grand adventure or playing hero, but it gave her the happiness that she had been trying so hard to find for all those years.

She had felt content…

No sense of not being good enough, of having to try harder, do better. Be perfect.

With him, there was no need for that. She was always enough just the way she was. As long as she was by his side, that was enough for him. But she couldn’t even give him that…

 

With every waking moment, she could recall the dream less and less clearly. What had felt so real only moments ago was now nothing more than blurry images and a fading sense of happiness. But the aching never seemed to fade along with it. She tried so hard to hold onto it but in the end, she was left with only a vague memory of the life she could’ve had with him.

It was ridiculous really. To feel such a great sense of loss over something she never had in the first place, something that wasn’t real.

Still, it was hard to stop thinking about the life she could never have, to stop dwelling on all the things she could’ve done differently.

But York was right. She needed to learn to let go.

So that’s what she did. When morning came, she let go of the past and what could have been. She let go of her guilt over the friends she couldn’t save and the family she would never have. And she was okay with it.

She would always miss them…miss _him_ … and if it meant saving York and the others, she’d give up her life in a heartbeat. But she found that she was okay with the way things were now because she wasn’t alone. She had made new friends and she _did_ have a family now. Nothing could ever replace the friends she had before. The other Freelancers would always mean something to her, but she had found a family in the Reds and Blues. It wasn’t perfect, and it definitely wasn’t what people would call conventional, but it was hers and she loved it.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sure Carolina wasn’t the type to want to settle down and have a family and I'm not saying that after this dream she suddenly wanted one, but I think if it was with York, she would’ve been happy if she did, even if it was terribly domestic. The fact that she spent so much of her life trying to get the approval of her father makes me think that she was craving some form of a family or at least acceptance. And I think she would have found that with York had she not been blinded by her one-track obsession with being the best.


End file.
